A fair and inclusive approach provides a strong foundation for the sustainable implementation of Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), as it involves and empowers all stakeholders to work together toward achieving climate targets.

This was the key message delivered by civil society during the dialogue space event “Bersuara untuk Iklim: Realizing Climate Justice for the Marginalized”, organized by Yayasan MADANI Berkelanjutan in collaboration with Yayasan Pikul and Yayasan Humanis on 3–4 July 2024 in Jakarta.

At present, the Government of Indonesia is preparing its Second Nationally Determined Contribution (Second NDC/SNDC), which is scheduled to be submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in August 2024. The development of the SNDC is expected to integrate climate justice principles in order to address existing socio-economic and political inequalities, while ensuring that the burdens and benefits of climate action are distributed fairly.

Executive Director of Yayasan MADANI Berkelanjutan, Nadia Hadad, emphasized that integrating climate justice into government policies and programs—such as the NDC, SNDC, and broader climate crisis responses—requires attention to four key dimensions: recognitional justice, distributive justice, procedural justice, and restorative justice.

Nadia also reminded participants that Indonesia has entered a phase of climate crisis, as its impacts are already being deeply felt across all layers of society.

“Whether in urban, suburban, or rural areas, people experience the impacts in different ways. That is why those affected must be positioned as subjects, not merely objects, in climate crisis responses,” she said.

Indonesia, she noted, continues to bear the burden of greenhouse gas emissions historically produced by developed countries since the industrial revolution several decades ago.

In addition, Indonesians also shoulder the ecological costs of natural resource extraction driven by wealthy nations. As a consequence, many Indigenous and local communities have lost access to land ownership and tenure.

Nadia explained that while communities are being forced to change their ways of life and adapt to climate change, they often feel excluded from national development planning processes.

Therefore, she stressed that the government must ensure meaningful participation of all groups—especially vulnerable communities such as traditional fishers, coastal populations, smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples, women, persons with disabilities, children, older persons, the urban poor, and workers—in climate policy decision-making.

Through this dialogue space, Yayasan MADANI Berkelanjutan hopes that the aspirations and inputs of vulnerable communities and civil society will be heard by policymakers, in order to strengthen both the ambition and climate justice dimensions of key policy documents, including the Second NDC and Indonesia’s National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 2025–2029.